It had to happen. C’est la vie. Yes, the Village’s first cronut knockoff has arrived. Of course, it’s not actually called a cronut, but rather a French donut. (Maybe this will eventually be shortened to “Fronut”?) Its first day of sale was Saturday at Mille-feuille bakery and cafe, 552 LaGuardia Place, between W. Third and Bleecker Sts. — a mere five blocks away from the birthplace of the now-famed cronut, Dominique Ansel Bakery, at 189 Spring St. The flavors at Mille-feuille are chocolate, vanilla beans and raspberry. A price war hasn’t broken out just yet, as the going rate for both a cronut and a French donut is the same, $5. And similar to the cronut craze that is seeing cronut nuts line up on Spring St. as early as 3 a.m., there was a line outside Mille-feuille when it opened at 7 a.m. They were sold out of French donuts by around 3 p.m. According to New York magazine, Dominique Ansel, the owner of the Spring St. bakery, has smartly trademarked the word “cronut.” Although the LaGuardia Place French donuts are the first local imitators, cronut knockoffs rep0rtedly have, in fact, already cropped as far away as Australia and the Philippines. In one place they’re being called “cronots.” New York magazine advises Ansel to start churning out solely cronuts and drop production of his other pastries and sandwiches.
